


The Joys of Esoteric Sex

by NothingEnough



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Comedy, Crowley is Bad at Feelings (Good Omens), First Kiss, Footnotes, Loads Of Footnotes, Love Confessions, M/M, Male-Presenting Aziraphale (Good Omens), Male-Presenting Crowley (Good Omens), Non-Graphic Smut, Sex on the particulate level, Shapeshifting, Slash, Swearing, Theology, riding cowboy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:22:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23128501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NothingEnough/pseuds/NothingEnough
Summary: "And then there was Crowley, who never found a loophole through which he couldn't slither." (pre- and post-series)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 66





	1. Concerning Doing It

Angels, broadly speaking, excel at sexual congress. Let not their appearances fool you: as Aziraphale once explained to Crowley[1], angels are beings of Love, and they therefore naturally do well at any Loving Act. Like the mortals, they had rules governing how they could Do It, and like the mortals, The Rules For Doing It were never clearly written down2, leading to many mistakes, missteps, and more than a few falls from grace.

Most angels don't Do It for tactical reasons. Angels tend to be workaholics, and therefore prefer to utilize their free time for the glorification of God and advancement of mortalkind, rather than petty flings. Humans tend to be, well, mortal, rendering any relationship all too transitional. Also, no one has successfully loved a human being into Heaven[3]; also also, the one Rule that seemed clear was Thou Shalt Not Create A Nephilim, and most angels are allergic to latex.

Leaving that aside, the most virginal of angelkind[4] would, if the situation called for it, make a better lover than human history's most experienced Lotharios or Lotharias.

One would think that demons, being of the same stuff as angels, and being rather famous for their prowess, would be even better at Doing It. This is a common misconception borne of humanity generally not having any idea what good sex is.

In truth, every single denizen of Hell is just plain rubbish, for several reasons. To wit:

  1. Like their counterparts, most demons are obsessed with their work, and only Do It when a human makes Doing It a part of the deal
  2. Demons possess a number of unlovely physical traits which put off the vast majority of potential partners 
    * Those who aren't put off, invariably, will put off the demon in question
  3. Demons are self-centered, easily distracted, and unimaginative, traits virtually no one desires from someone they're Doing It with
  4. Most demons don't share the kinks of their patients
  5. There are a _lot_ more Rules For Doing It[5] Down Below than there are Up Above



The aforementioned Rules haven't been written down for devils, either. That would be cheating, and it's far easier to punish followers for breaking Rules when they don't know what those Rules are. But by this stage in the proceedings of existence, most of those Down Below had a good sense of who to Do and who to not. 

Neither side had explicitly forbidden Doing It with one of The Enemy. It hadn't seemed necessary. When a demon and an angel gaze upon one another, their first thought is how to best murder their enemy. And their second, third, fourth, and so on thoughts, ad infinitum. It is certainly possible to Do It with someone you're thinking of murdering, but broadly, this does not lead to a great and lasting relationship which defies all good sense and makes the Revolution To Come that much more difficult.

And then there was Crowley, who never found a loophole through which he couldn't slither[6].

Not only was he, by the standards of Down Below, a regular Casanova, but his services--depending on his name and historical climes--had been actively sought by mortals. He hadn't overcome his own nature, per se. If you lined up those in the know and asked, they would all report that Crowley's skin shivered and crept like something plasmic; that his body was forever cold to the touch; that his natural odor was a lizardy musk that no amount of perfume, body spray, incense, or Glade Plug-Ins could overwhelm; and that he always pressed his iceblock feet directly against his partner when he dozed off. They would also agree that his spunk was an orange-yellow-black reminiscent of magma, which thankfully did not burn, but did permanently stain anything it came in contact with, including skin.

In order to acquire the sort of reputation he possessed, then, he _had_ to be good at It. And he was, such that many souls Down Below could blame their plight on Crowley loving them to Hell.

His secret was threefold. First, so far as his former partners cared, was his tongue.

Second was his imagination: he was _never_ boring.

Third, the factor that no human could know, the factor which Heaven and Hell had long suspected, was that he'd Done It with Aziraphale.

After all, there was no Rule that said he couldn't.

-tbc-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Addressed in "The Imagination of [His] Evil Heart", albeit in a different headcanon[return to text]  
> 2 Certain religious texts ought to have a footnote: _Offer only applies to members of the Tribe of (name) at the time of this writing_ [return to text]  
> 3Any reporting suggesting otherwise of St. Teresa of Ávila are bunkum. That's not what she meant by ecstasy and you know it[return to text]  
> 4 Gabriel[return to text]  
> 5 There are far more virgins in Hell than there are in Heaven, which no one has the heart to tell St. Paul[return to text]  
> 6 This tendency to rule-hound made Crowley absolutely impossible to handle as a D&D player[return to text]


	2. Concerning Their Little Arrangement

As with many things, it had been Crowley's brainchild.

The terms of the deal were simple. They had bodies; bodies had desires. True, having sex wasn't as important as sleeping or eating; but also true, Not Getting Any for too long changed Crowley's personality for the worst. Besides, hadn't the angel always said that It was best enjoyed outside of work?

"I _do_ always say that," said Aziraphale, speaking slowly, as though he had bad news to deliver. "But it wasn't an offer, my dear."

"Yyyeah, well, this is."

To this day, Crowley can't believe that was how he got his foot in the door, but that was where the negotiations started. Then again, maybe he wasn't the one doing the manipulating. Aziraphale was the only being in Creation who'd made a deal with Crowley and not been double-crossed.

As above and below, Their Little Arrangement had its own rules, but the demon and angel, having borne the brunt of unwritten Rules, hashed them out beforehand. They remained unwritten--Crowley wasn't an idiot, you don't take handwritten notes on a conspiracy to fuck one of The Enemy--but he knew them all by heart, as though he mentally recited them on the daily.

  1. Only if both of us are unattached[1]
  2. Only when we aren't actively working against one another[2]
  3. With the understanding that nobody's changing anyone's mind on What Side He's On by consenting
  4. If invited to one's home, the other may not use any information gleaned from thence against him in a later power struggle
  5. No surprise transmutations _in medias res_ [3]



Aziraphale didn't really enjoy their first encounter. Crowley knew this because, well, he was capable of observing reality. He took a little warming up; Crowley had to work 'til his tongue felt hinged before the angel really relaxed, and afterwards, he clucked over how the sheets were _ruined_ [4]. Crowley took it personally, though he suspected his sometimes-companion's problem: even if they weren't monitoring him Up Above, there was always Someone watching.

He waited eighteen years before he mentioned Their Little Arrangement once more, and when Aziraphale turned him down, he snapped: "Oh, come _on_ , angel, it wasn't that bad!"

"Well, 'not that bad' isn't precisely what I'm looking for." He pursed his lips and folded his hands, like that would protect him from the full brunt of Crowley's flaming[5] glare. "Don't take it badly, my dear, I respect you as much as I can, given our positions. But, how shall I?--you are quite thoughtless as a lover."

" _What shit_. I'll have you know none of that was even a little bit thoughtless.[6]"

"Perhaps you ought to try spontaneity," Aziraphale said, but after, he seemed just as disappointed as the first time.

Crowley stretched out over two-thirds of the bed and stared sullenly at the angel's back. He'd never felt inadequate before, but then again, everyone else he'd Done It with had been too intimidated by him to critique his performance. He'd followed the Rules and Aziraphale, who just _had_ to be a cuddler, was just… lying there. Facing the wall. Thinking.

This wasn't gonna work, was it?

He opened his mouth to say as much, when Aziraphale said: "That's twice, now, and you still haven't kissed me."

"Never said I would," Crowley said, as much out of habit as anything--if he couldn't be contrary, he simply couldn't be. "If it, uh, means that much to you, though, I suppose I could make the mmph."

'Effort' was what he'd meant to say, but Aziraphale, who could move quickly given the correct motivation, turned to face him and stopped his mouth with a kiss. 

By the time Crowley got himself back again, three hours had passed. He lay coiled round Aziraphale to pin him down as though the angel were in any condition to get up, and he wanted to prevent it. His nose pressed a little too hard against the angel's neck. His whole body gave a little creeping sensation. He felt warmish.

This had to be a mistake. One he planned to make again.

-tbc-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 They politely said "both of us", knowing that this only really limited Aziraphale[return to text]  
> 2 That had made the 5th century such a drag[return to text]  
> 3 Guess who this was for?[return to text]  
> 4 Given that this was somewhere in the Sierra Nevada in 6th-century Spain, he ought to have been grateful there were any sheets at all[return to text]  
> 5 In this case, metaphorical[return to text]  
> 6 He had been ruminating on what he would do if Aziraphale said yes since the midmorning of Time[return to text]


	3. Concerning That One Time After Crowley Rescued Aziraphale From the Reign of Terror

Crowley kept it together for a little over a thousand years, until Aziraphale had to go and nearly get himself killed--by _mortals_ , no less--which spoilt everything.

Before that, Crowley had prided himself on how expertly he'd handled it. His overall technique had improved, per his patients and Aziraphale's estimation, but, apart from losing his head over a _kiss_ the one time, he had not done anything stupid. His heart was not strangely warmed. He would smirk at Aziraphale more than once, but not smile; he'd moan, but not shiver. This was just A Little Arrangement, not A Cosmic Romance, and he saw no reason to lie to himself [1].

But after his little demonic miracle--the sort of thing the folks Down Below would call "an unforced error" as they moved your name to one of the worse-bad books--he'd taken Aziraphale to lunch, and then a pub, and then two other pubs, and he'd watched the angel drink and giggle and _my dear_ , all the while thinking about the efficiency with which a guillotine could have disincorporated his only friend.

He'd taken Aziraphale back to his own flat [2] and proceeded to be an enormous embarrassment for an hour.

He'd knelt on the floor whilst they were still in the foyer and, and he begged for Aziraphale to make something for him. By the time Crowley got his leggings down, the stunned-unto-silence angel had adopted his usual configuration, around which Crowley enshrined his tongue. Once he could taste the warm light of Aziraphale's oncoming end, he'd done the properly demonic thing and stopped.

"Oh, _why_?" 

"Bed, is why," Crowley said, gazing up at his shuddering companion with a glint in his wild eyes.

They got to the bed [3] and he suspected that there was an Overboard, here, and he might tumble off it if he wasn't careful; but they had drunk an astounding amount of wine, he felt limber and shuddery, Aziraphale was fetching [4] and warm, and why not? Surely he didn't have to play it cool all the time. Did he?

It ended with him on top, Aziraphale well-supported by the mountain of pillows so that he practically sat up; hands glowing with heat as they clamped onto Crowley's shoulders. The demon took a moment to get his breath back, but nothing doing. His bastard friend started _thrusting_ , taking it so slow it somehow felt pensive, and Crowley's mind gorged on pleasure 'til it, more or less, exploded [5].

He had, well, Hell's bells, what was the right verb? "Moaned" didn't convey the proper volume, but "shrieked" implied more terror. Probably something between those two extremes.

That almost threw Aziraphale off his game. Not that he stopped--he never, but his eyes did widen, and he bit his own lip. "Crowley," he managed, "are you well?"

And Crowley replied. He might have used the phrase "sort of happy" in that reply. He might also have ended with a demand to be kissed. 

Later, he scarcely remembered what he'd said. Only the crushing sense that he'd lost face remained.

-tbc-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Crowley was lying to himself[return to text]  
> 2 London again, which currently had the major bonus of not being Paris[return to text]  
> 3 Which took up almost all of the floor space in his bedroom. Crowley tosses and turns[return to text]  
> 4 Aziraphale had been flirting with Crowley during the pub-crawl, as a reward for behavior which, had it been anyone else's, he would have deemed Good[return to text]  
> 5 Also not literal, this time[return to text]


	4. Concerning The Cruel Angel Thesis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We do not apologize for references to "Neon Genesis Evangelion" in this or any fanfic

But Crowley wasn't the only one there.

Long after the demon fell into the twisting infrablack of his nightmare-filled[1] sleep, Aziraphale laid awake, staring at the stretched pane of moonlight as it crept across the floor. Generally, sleep wasn't one of Aziraphale's pleasures, but generally, he greeted the dawn with his face buried in a book, not thinking.

Despite his own reputation, Aziraphale didn't do a great deal of thinking. It took him until after Crowley awakened and, visibly uncomfortable, told him he'd business to tend to and anyhow the angel surely couldn't wait any longer for breakfast, go on without him. Aziraphale was in the middle of his second helping of bacon and his third cup of coffee before he was through with his rumination.

And he came to the exact wrong conclusion, about which more later.

Crowley did not bring up Their Little Arrangement again, and, given what he thought he knew, neither did Aziraphale. He didn't forget about it, exactly[2]; it was more that he grew used to ignoring that they'd ever made it.

And then, as ever, Crowley took all his hard work and threw it in the bin.

***

"I think," Aziraphale had said about two weeks after the End Of Days, "I'm overdue for a holiday.[3]"

Crowley had, of course, argued with him. Demons weren't creatures famed for their equanimity, nor their capacity for acquiescence. As Aziraphale later discovered, Crowley had, whilst delivering a harangue on the subject of I've Had It With The Bloody Countryside For At Least A Hundred Years, What Were You Thinking You Nutty Bastard, used some app[4] on his mobile to book a little bungalow. They could see Wales from the backyard.

"Not that we'll have much time for gazing upon the landscape," Crowley had said.

Aziraphale had been so tickled by Crowley's thoughtfulness that he hadn't acknowledged this last crack, but it had consumed the angel's attention the whole drive west-ish. He had been created at night[5], but not last night. Perhaps if they had never had a Little Arrangement, he could have talked himself into believing that Crowley was referring to the suitcase of books Aziraphale had brought along.

It had been so long since he'd known Crowley in the Biblical sense that bringing it up seemed almost gauche.

They drove on through a silence so pregnant that, in the last hour, it gave birth to a whole little of nervous, (excited?) thoughts; these thoughts darted through his mind, wending and romping, distracting him from any real conclusion. _Did he? Were they? But if?_

He didn't notice they had arrived at their destination until Crowley snapped his fingers before his dazed eyes. "Oi, Earth to Angel, you there?"

"Oh--I'll thank you not to snap at me, I'm not a dog." He tried, and succeeded, at smoothing the startled annoyance out of his voice, turning it into his usual magnanimity. "S-so, here we are."

Crowley shrugged, sneered at nothing in particular. "Yep. Holiday in the country, just what you ordered. Beautiful as my car is, though, I don't plan on spending the weekend in it. So how's about we--"

"Wait." They were, after all, in the middle of nowhere; the landlady had yet to arrive; and, frankly, Aziraphale could not wait another moment to have this conversation. "Just so we understand one another's intentions, my dear, you, ah, you were talking about not looking at the landscapes because--"

"--We're gonna fuck."

Aziraphale pursed his lips. "Yes, Our Little Arrangement. I thought--"

"Nah, we're not playing by those rules any longer."

"When were you planning on telling _me_ that?" 

"Now's as good a time as any, Aziraphale." The sneer vanished, replaced by a grin almost gentle enough to qualify for a smile. "Look, if, if you're gonna, you don't have to make a fuss about it. Those rules, we don't need 'em anymore. We're not enemies, so that takes care of Two, Three, and Four. I sup _pose_ if you insist on Five being a thing, I'll agree, but you must admit that we're missing out on a lot of fun."

"You don't know that I'm unattached."

"You'd have said when the world was ending. But, about that--" Crowley touched the rim of his sunglasses, as though he thought of taking them off, but decided against it. "--listen, if you don't want to, that's fine. If you're that thirsty for another mortal twink, and n-not me, can't really stop you, the heart wants what it wants. But I've got something to say before you make up your mind."

Aziraphale stared. He was principally composed of the Holy Light of The LORD, which kept his mortal body feverishly warm--but a little chill ran up his spine, regardless. He'd never been propositioned this way, not even by Crowley, and he'd no inkling of what to expect. "Very well, I'm listening."

"I lllll _lllllluh_ you.[6]"

He did something distressingly human, what most people do when confronted with an epiphany: he blinked, and uttered a clunky, stupid "What?"

Crowley said something else, but he didn't hear it; his mind became wheels within wheels, all interspinning as he desperately tried to process this new information. It changed almost everything he'd ever thought about the demon, and what wasn't transformed was magnified. The last time they'd made love, Aziraphale had felt certain that Crowley's "almost happy" babbling had been just that, babbling. A less kind word would be lying. He had realized at that moment that Crowley would never be any more than this. He was one of the Enemy. He'd never change. He'd always be miserable, and cold, and dishonest. He'd always have a cruel streak. He'd lie about something that made Aziraphale so pleased in the moment, and so hurt when the falsehood was revealed in the distance Crowley put between them, and he'd lie about it just because he could.

Or. Or. Perhaps Crowley had meant it. And had been so embarrassed by the fact that he couldn't bear to bring it up again.

Which of them had a cruel streak?

"Hang on, lemme try again." The demon cleared his throat, squared his shoulders, immediately hunched back over the wheel again. This time, his gaze rested on the little white-and-blue-trimmed cottage. Just the sort of quaint dwelling Crowley despised. He'd picked it out to please Aziraphale. "Right. Nobody listening. I love you. Always have. Made working against you bastard hard, sometimes, but I managed. Think I've been quite professional, to be honest. I don't want any advanced theological arguments about my nature making it impossible for me to feel Love The Way It's Meant To Be Felt, either, or you're walking back to London."

Aziraphale was unaware of the silly smile on his own face, which was probably for the best.

Were he inclined to make an advanced theological argument, it wouldn't be that one, anyhow. It would be this: Aziraphale had many vices, far more than was proper for anyone of his kind or stature. The Ineffable Plan had, apparently, relied more on his essential cowardice and selfishness to pull him through the End Of Days than it had on his benevolence. Also apparently, this was currently all right with The LORD, or he'd have heard about it. And were he permitted his own vices, Crowley must be permitted at least one little virtue.

He could tell Crowley he loved him. He had[7], several times, but the words were meaningless from a being of Love and Light. It wasn't a confession if it was already known to both parties, was it? It ought to be a surprise, something Crowley wasn't expecting, something maybe a little closer to a sin.

"No, I. No arguments from me, my dear. If you're quite done, d'you think you could work an infernal miracle and unlock the front door?"

Now it was Crowley's turn to "What?"

"It's been three centuries. I'm not waiting however long it takes for the landlady to bring the keys. I want you _now_ [8]."

Crowley must have misheard him, although Aziraphale had no clue how _unlock the front door_ could be interpreted as _blow the bloodydamn thing off its hinges_.

-tbc-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 What? Did you think a demon would have pleasant dreams?[return to text]  
> 2 This would necessitate forgetting what they'd done, and Aziraphale found it tricky to forget something he thought of frequently[return to text]  
> 3 This was entered into the 60th annual Understatement of the Century Award, lately known as the Abigail due to one of its American winners. The results are still pending[return to text]  
> 4 We are not using this story for free advertisement[return to text]  
> 5The Third Night, specifically, which sometimes led one to believe that one had been an afterthought of The LORD, but raised the thorny question of whether The LORD could have an afterthought[return to text]  
> 6 The Collector from "Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight" was modeled on Crowley. So, per Crowley, was John Milton from "The Devil's Advocate", who was far too involved in events to be Lord Satan. The most accurate portrayal of Satan in fiction appears in "Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell"[return to text]  
> 7 Crowley's usual response had been "So what? You love food"[return to text]  
> 8The author wishes to note that while sexual desire, or its lack, are not sins in and of themselves for humankind, angels are literally a different matter[return to text]


	5. Concerning Doing It (Reprise)

Traditionally, Crowley had all the best ideas between them, but what followed their not-exactly-legal entry of the cottage was all Aziraphale. He was the one who reattached the front door with a miraculous handwave. He was the one who, when Crowley stopped in the living room to complain about how no cottage should be so quaint as to have a cathode-tube television set, set his hands on the demon's shoulders and shoved him in the general direction of the bedroom. He was the one who, once they arrived, stripped an uncharacteristically-quiet Crowley of every stitch of clothing, and saw that everything was neatly folded and left on top of the doily-drenched armoire. 

But none of those qualified for his First Big Idea. That was this:

A half-hour of kisses and murmurs and sighs passed, followed by a few minutes of industrious application of lubricant, followed by Crowley on his back, his legs spread so far apart he risked doing the splits, both hands latched onto Aziraphale's arse, guiding him to a harder, faster pace than the angel would have preferred. He didn't mind. It had been long and long and Crowley felt so tight and cold, it was easy to follow his lead. Aziraphale shifted on his knees, his hands butterflied over Crowley's chest, he felt his friend's skin shudder and crawl like a living thing under his fingers.

He ought to be thinking of nothing at all, not now, not while he had Crowley all but singing, but he did.

Crowley had no way of knowing it, but Aziraphale had, in fact, transubstantiated while Doing It with a few of his human lovers. On one memorable occasion, he had transformed into pure light and shone on his lover, who had been startled that this stimulation could bring him to orgasm. Yet in all his millenia, he had never known any supernatural being in the Biblical sense, apart from Crowley, and they'd never Done It wearing anything but their usual flesh.

But why not? And why not?

It was Aziraphale's turn to smirk.[1]

"Crowley," he said, his voice as placid as a lake on a windless day.

"Whwhu?"

"The--" His lover clenched round him so tightly that he temporarily forgot how to speak. "--the, the Rules. They're out the window, are they?"

"Whu'th'fuck you on about, angel?"

"I've just been thinking--well! Perhaps it's best to show you," and, for one of only a handful of times since they'd met forever ago, Aziraphale surprised Crowley.

His hands still rested firm on Crowley's chest, pinning him to the (old, squeaking) bed. They began to glow, their firelight casting redwhite over the demon's pale face; his lively skin felt as though it crawled away from Aziraphale's light, fearful and agonized. He pressed, his atoms chasing Crowley's, as beams of purest flame crawled up Aziraphale's freckled forearms and up and round and down. He looked for a moment as though Gabriel's execution had finally succeeded--then his body gently dissolved, not disincorporated, changed to something befitting the Holy Glory of a principality.

Crowley gawped at what had become of his angel, his wide eyes flickering up to the Flames and down at where they converged within him.

He smiled. At last, he _smiled_.

"You could of said," Crowley observed.

Then--then Aziraphale sensed the atomic structure of Crowley's body follow his example, becoming a darkness so potent that it reflected none of the angel's firelight, and everything became a little strange.[2]

***

Miss Mallory Penbrook pulled up next to the Bentley. So taken was she with her renters' fabulous car that she almost didn't notice the front door. Aziraphale had put it back on its hinges, but had failed, in his haste, to close it.

She walked very slowly into her house, her keyring clutched in her left hand, the keys bristling between her fingers. The police would take ages to make it out this far in the middle of nowhere, and she made it her policy to not fear burglars. If Mister Covvey and his plus-one thought they could nip in and steal whatever wasn't nailed down, they had another think coming.

Miss Penbrook made it halfway down the hall, whereupon she looked through the likewise-open door to the master bedroom.

After a frantic call to the local constabulary--who, quite rudely but understandably, laughed at her frantic report of a bloody thunderstorm inside her house--she glanced down the hall again to confirm what she thought she had seen.

A beam of shadow unshone through the door and down the hall, down her optical nerves and straight into her brain.

Five minutes later, Miss Penbrook hummed to herself as she checked her frizzy red hair in the rearview mirror. She reversed her truck and backed out onto the unnamed road. Nice blokes, both of 'em. Very apologetic about leaving the door open. She couldn't quite believe she'd forgotten to lock the front door, but she must have. What other explanation was there?

***

Mallory's assessment to the police wasn't far off.

Crowley's truest, deepest essence was not, as one might think, a snake. It was absence. Lack. A bereftness of the Light And Love Of The LORD. He was absolute zero, a cold so great it burnt. He was a shadow so black that no light could ever hope to clarify it[3]. He was roiling chaos, without form, void, the darkness on the face of the deep.

Aziraphale could taste his demon's thoughts: craving, despair, a neediness that could never be satisfied, a loathing for his own self so profound that only The LORD was capable of exceeding it[4]. He was a hole in reality which could never be filled.

Save by Aziraphale.

Beams of flaming firelight coiled and smoked through the Darkness, lightning crawling through the thunderheads. Visually and spiritually speaking, each enhanced the other. His Light did not corrupt and dim; instead it glowed all the hotter, so bright that it lightly charred all the picture frames and accidentally ignited one of the doilies. Crowley's Shadows did not pale and fade. They grew, expanded, their blackness all the more rich and secretive and deep for the Light, his chill safely extinguishing the doily before the whole place went up like a candle.

Their essences writhed, wrestled as though they were Jacob come back for a rematch, Aziraphale drinking in everything of Crowley he couldn't get any other way. In this state all their thoughts were revealed to one another, and the revelation delighted. He shone into all the fantasies Crowley had entertained over the eons and completed them; Crowley crept like a thief into Aziraphale's nervous yearning, and the angel swore that despite neither of them having ears or mouths, he heard Crowley laugh in surprise and pleasure.

That little jolt of _good_ augmented Aziraphale's ecstasy--the joy not of knowing, but Being Known--and it created a feedback loop between their forms, Crowley getting off on him getting off on Crowley getting off, ad finem--when the red in his Light whited out, the Cold wreathed round his Heat shuddered subatomically, the wheels-within-wheels of their beatific and infernal minds spun _together_ , one and separate and perfectly in tune, and

_Oh!_

In

the

Darkness

_there_

_came_

**_Light!_ **

-tbc-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 He didn't do it well, but will improve with practice[return to text]  
> 2 As the astrophysicist once said, this was a strange matter[return to text]  
> 3 Only holy water could do the job[return to text]  
> 4 Not that She would, but it was within Her ability[return to text]


	6. Addressing One Final Concern

The next morning, at quarter to ten, Aziraphale came back into himself.

It had taken several long, reluctant hours before their atoms withdrew from their wild dancing, reconstituting into their old familiar instantly-sleeping bodies. It turns out that mysterious sex was far _more_ than the usual article, and that included its capacity to exhaust the participants. He, who rarely indulged in more than the occasional luxurious nap, slept straight through the night.

Crowley was gone by the time he awakened.

He laid on his back, feeling each rusted bedspring through the mattress and the pillowtop-cover and the sheets as though he were a princess, sensing each thread of cloth nestled round his nakedness. He could count each particle of air as he breathed it in. Every mere and little thing about being alive struck him as wondrous, full, present. He had peered into the Abyss, made love to that Abyss, and returned as himself, but not the same himself as before.

He hadn't only seen Crowley's thoughts--he had thought them. He had seen all. Yes, the terrible and the horrible; the murders Crowley had arranged and instigated and sometimes committed; the calculated suffering and sinful misery he'd inflicted on humankind, and also Crowley. But somehow, improbably, but there nonetheless, there was love. The demon had once more slithered through the loopholes of his nature. He had perverted all his covetousness, his possessiveness, his yawning want, alchemized all these nasty, demonic elements into something not quite holy. Something near to Love The Way It's Meant To Be Felt.

Close enough for Aziraphale, at any rate.

He got out of bed (the floorboards vibrated with the warm softness of wood under his bare feet) and dressed (his clothing caressed him ever so gently, familiar as a lover). He considered the damage he'd done to the room the night before, then set it all to rights. He moved down the hall (the air felt lively, the dim sunlight warmed his eyes and his heart), past the living room (where Crowley had transmuted the television into a grand flatscreen, and the comfortable blue recliner into a proper throne), and into the kitchenette.

He stood at the threshold and watched Crowley as the demon silently went about making coffee. He was fairly sure this cottage didn't have a massive espresso machine before they arrived, and that Crowley hadn't packed a black velvet robe[1] to wear for the occasion, but Aziraphale wasn't in a mood to quibble with reality. 

Crowley opened the ancient refrigerator, scoffed at the contents with a "For _fuck's_ sake,", then glared at the stovetop as though it offended him. Shadows swirled over the gas-fed coils, then became a cast-iron pan, sizzling, full of two eggs and five rashers of bacon.

Because he knew Aziraphale liked a nosh first thing in the morning.

Crowley appeared to be surprised when, just as he started to add some milk to the coffee, Aziraphale pressed behind him. "Don't get cheeky with me, or I'll burn your breakfast."

But he had to show a bit of cheek, because there was one question which needed answering, so far as the angel could tell. What they had done last night had both thrilled and drained him beyond all measure. In all honesty, Aziraphale worried that nothing they could do in their mortal forms would compare. Would it feel different, being just one man kissing his lover good-morning?

He tried the experiment, and found it did feel different. 

It felt better.

-end-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Crowley hadn't packed anything, so this was a fair assumption to make[return to text]


End file.
